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By Fatik Al-Rodaini
Sana'a, June 9, 2011- At least one soldier was killed and two others were wounded in Yemen's southern province of Hadhramout.
Private sources said that an unknown armed group attacked a governmental patrol vehicle in the city of Koten killing one and wounding two others. Sources said that attackers ran away after the attack, no more details were reported.
Russia may take additional measures to ensure the safety of Russian nationals in Yemen, which is teetering on the brink of a civil war, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.
"Depending on how the situation in Yemen unfolds, we do not rule out taking additional to ensure the safety of our citizens," Lukashevich told reporters in Moscow.
A pro-democracy uprising against the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has developed into an armed conflict drawing in U.S. airstrikes.
Lukashevich did not say exactly what measures could be taken.
He said the number of diplomats at the embassy in Sanaa and consulate general in Adana had been trimmed.
Washington says it is trying to prevent Islamist militants from taking control of the impoverished state, amid concerns that al Qaeda operatives might have mingled with the protesters.
Saleh was badly wounded in a bomb attack on his Sanaa compound on Friday.
The government said the 69-year-old leader would return to work within a week despite reports that burns cover 40 percent of his body.
MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti)
DUBAI, 9 June 2011 (IRIN) - Political violence has displaced thousands in Yemen, while a three-fold increase in the cost of food and water, combined with fuel shortages, is straining the ability of families to cope, aid workers warn.
In the capital, Sana’a, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reported that about 4,000 residents are seeking protection as a result of fighting late last month in the northern Al-Hasaba district of the city between security forces loyal to President Ali Saleh and the armed opposition.
The target for government loyalists was the Al-Hasaba home of Sheikh Sadeq Al-Ahmar, head of the politically key Al-Ahmar family, who has emerged as a champion of those demanding Saleh’s resignation.
Humanitarian agencies are also aware of other smaller groups of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sana’a.
Joint International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Yemen Red Crescent teams working in and around Sana'a have retrieved some 20 dead bodies since 4 June. On 7 June, seven bodies were recovered from Al-Hassaba, ICRC said in a statement.
The southern city of Zinjibar has reportedly virtually emptied since its takeover by anti-government militia, but ongoing insecurity has prevented aid workers from accessing the area.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there could be as many as 35,000-40,000 IDPs in need in the coastal city of Aden, and the southern governorate of Abyan.
“Nearly 10,000 IDPs from Abyan, southern Yemen, are living in relocation centres in public schools in and around [Yemen’s second city] Aden,” said Pete Mansfield, OCHA deputy head in Yemen. A further 4,700 IDPs have been registered in Lahj.
Families in Aden are taking in many of those who have fled the violence in the south, but several of these households are already close to the poverty line and will need support, aid workers said.
At least 15 humanitarian organizations are working in Aden to provide water, shelter, food, health services and other assistance. “Coordination is progressing well but the needs are large,” Mansfield told IRIN.
NGOs are reporting that food and water prices have increased up to threefold in some urban towns, including Sana’a. A national fuel shortage is also continuing to disrupt markets, hamper the ability to pump and distribute water, and keep cars off the streets.
Celebratory gunfire
A tense ceasefire has held in Sana’a, but on the night of 8 June there were hours of celebratory gunfire by pro-government forces greeting the news that Saleh was out of intensive care after successful surgery in Saudi Arabia for wounds received in a rocket attack on the presidential compound.
“The intent was clear from government forces to remind everyone that they are still there,” a diplomatic source told IRIN. “Although the ceasefire is just about holding, tensions are very high.”
Yemen’s opposition and pro-democracy protesters are demanding that Saleh step down after 32 years in power, accusing him of corruption, cronyism and mismanagement. He has responded with violence. Since the start of the civil unrest in February, an estimated 225 people have been killed and 3,125 injured.
On 8 June protesters demanded that Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi agree to the formation of a transitional presidential council drawn from a broad base of Yemeni groups to run the country until elections. Both the protest movement and opposition parties want Hadi to renounce Saleh and block his return from Saudi Arabia.
“We ask Hadi to be wise to save the country,” Adil Al-Aswar, a member of a committee coordinating the protest movement, told IRIN. “If Saleh returns we will see the situation turn more violent.”
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Updated: Wednesday, June 8,
SANAA, Yemen — Youth and human rights activist leaders, who spearheaded Yemen’s populist rebellion, said Wednesday that they intend to launch their own transitional presidential council if the government refuses to abandon President Ali Abdullah Saleh and pave the way for a transition of power.
The ultimatum underscored the sense of urgency and frustrations among the activists. They fear that, even with Saleh outside Yemen, they could lose the gains they have achieved so far and that his government could continue to rule in his absence.
“The only reason we are calling for the formation of a presidential council is because we feel the political powers have failed to take advantage of this historical moment when the president has left,” Tawakkol Karman, a prominent activist, told reporters, referring to Saleh’s loyalists. “So we have taken the initiative.”
While the creation of a shadow transitional council, if it happens, is unlikely to alter the power dynamics inside Yemen, it would send a clear signal that many of the youth and human rights activists who launched the rebellion are unhappy with current efforts by the political opposition and the international community to create a post-Saleh Yemen.
The other major players in Yemen have largely stayed out of the political fray, although they remain influential. Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Saleh’s closest ally before he defected in March, has kept out of the public eye. But his troops continue to guard the protesters at Change Square, where tens of thousands have camped out for months.
The tribal militias linked to the Ahmar family remain in control of some areas, including the Hasaba district in northern Sanaa, home to the family’s residences. The Ahmars have long played a significant role in Yemen and are among the country’s wealthiest citizens. One son, Hamid, a business tycoon, is a top leader in the political opposition who is widely viewed as a potential successor to Saleh.
In the south, Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch, have taken advantage of the turmoil. They have taken over areas in Abyan province, an al-Qaeda stronghold, including the southern city of Zinjibar. But al-Qaeda has not weighed in vocally in the political arena.
The drive to oust Saleh took on a new sense of urgency amid reports Tuesday that the injuries he sustained in an attack on his palace last week were more severe than previously stated.
A U.S. official said that Saleh, who left Yemen on Saturday to seek medical care in Saudi Arabia, “sustained significant burn injuries and shrapnel wounds.”
In the streets of this tense capital, many youth activists see a greater opportunity to push through the democratic reforms they have fought for since launching a populist uprising in February. But Saleh’s supporters dismissed reports of his condition as exaggerated and appeared intent on demonstrating that without him, Yemen will remain engulfed in chaos.
On Wednesday, a Saudi-brokered truce continued to show signs of holding firm. Tribal fighters allied with the Ahmar family, who engaged in fierce clashes with government forces over two weeks, pulled out of several government buildings Tuesday night, including ministries they had taken over, according to Abdulqawi al-Qaisi, a spokesman for the family.
More than 15 rotting bodies of tribal fighters and soldiers as well as civilians from recent fighting were recovered Wednesday from the Hasaba neighborhood, witnesses said. They said the bodies were found in the area surrounding the Hasaba police station and near the house of Sadiq al-Ahmar, where fierce fighting between the government troops and Ahmar tribal supporters took place and had prevented the removal of the bodies. A spokesman at the Ahmar office said 10 of the dead were tribal fighters.
By MARK MAZZETTI
June 8, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.
The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.
On Friday, American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike.
Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived.
The recent operations come after a nearly year-long pause in American airstrikes, which were halted amid concerns that poor intelligence had led to bungled missions and civilian deaths that were undercutting the goals of the secret campaign.
Officials in Washington said that the American and Saudi spy services had been receiving more information — from electronic eavesdropping and informants — about the possible locations of militants. But, they added, the outbreak of the wider conflict in Yemen created a new risk: that one faction might feed information to the Americans that could trigger air strikes against a rival group.
A senior Pentagon official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that using force against militants in Yemen was further complicated by the fact that Qaeda operatives have mingled with other rebels and antigovernment militants, making it harder for the United States to attack without the appearance of picking sides.
The American campaign in Yemen is led by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, and is closely coordinated with the Central Intelligence Agency. Teams of American military and intelligence operatives have a command post in Sana, the Yemeni capital, to track intelligence about militants in Yemen and plot future strikes.
Concerned that support for the campaign could wane if the government of Yemen’s authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, were to fall, the United States ambassador in Yemen has met recently with leaders of the opposition, partly to make the case for continuing American operations. Officials in Washington said that opposition leaders have told the ambassador, Gerald M. Feierstein, that operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula should continue regardless of who wins the power struggle in Sana.
The extent of America’s war in Yemen has been among the Obama administration’s most closely guarded secrets, as officials worried that news of unilateral American operations could undermine Mr. Saleh’s tenuous grip on power. Mr. Saleh authorized American missions in Yemen in 2009, but placed limits on their scope and has said publicly that all military operations had been conducted by his own troops.
Mr. Saleh fled the country last week to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia after rebel shelling of the presidential compound, and more government troops have been brought back to Sana to bolster the government’s defense.
“We’ve seen the regime move its assets away from counterterrorism and toward its own survival,” said Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But as things get more and more chaotic in Yemen, the space for the Americans to operate in gets bigger,” he said.
But Mr. Boucek and others warned of a backlash from the American airstrikes, which over the past two years have killed civilians and Yemeni government officials. The benefits of killing one or two Qaeda-linked militants, he said, could be entirely eroded if airstrikes kill civilians and lead dozens of others to jihad.
Edmund J. Hull, ambassador to Yemen from 2001 to 2004 and the author of “High-Value Target: Countering Al Qaeda in Yemen,” called airstrikes a “necessary tool” but said that the United States had to “avoid collateral casualties or we will turn the tribes against us.”
Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen is believed by the C.I.A. to pose the greatest immediate threat to the United States, more so than even Qaeda’s senior leadership believed to be hiding in Pakistan. The Yemen group has been linked to the attempt to blow up a transatlantic jetliner on Christmas Day 2009 and last year’s plot to blow up cargo planes with bombs hidden inside printer cartridges.
Mr. Harithi, the militant killed on Friday, was an important operational figure in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was believed to be one of those responsible for the group’s ascendance in recent years. According to people in Yemen close to the militant group, Mr. Harithi travelled to Iraq in 2003 and fought alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian operative who led the Qaeda affiliate in Iraq until he was killed in an American strike in 2006. Mr. Harithi returned to Yemen in 2004, those close to the militants said, where he was captured, tried and imprisoned in 2006 but released three years later.
Even as senior administration officials worked behind the scenes with Saudi Arabia for a transitional government to take power in Yemen, a State Department spokesman on Wednesday called on the embattled government in Sana to remain focused on dealing with the rebellion and Qaeda militants.
“With Saleh’s departure for Saudi Arabia, where he continues to receive medical treatment, this isn’t a time for inaction,” said the spokesman, Mark Toner. “There is a government that remains in place there, and they need to seize the moment and move forward.”
Source: The New York Times
